July 15, 2002 the Emergency Communications unit of the W8CCI Radio Club participated in the Butler County Disaster Exercise.
They requested the usual coverage, operators on the sites to report what was going on, keep track of victims, where they were being transported to, supplement the county fire & EMS radio system, etc.
At the last planning session just a few days before the event, the hospital ER doctors wanted amateur operators to "shadow" them in and around the ER so they could have a "heads up" on what was coming their way from the sites.
Concerns were using 5 watt portables around sensitive hospital monitoring equipment, lower power would minimize that, but then getting a readable signal to the repeater was another problem.
With out a lot of time to "problem solve" we decided to utilize some of the member owned equipment to CROSSBAND repeat to a vehicle parked outside the ER.
IT WORKED!
Not to say we forgot that little bug-waiting for the repeater carrier to drop before the portables could transmit-but then we made modifications to the repeater for ZERO hang time, adjusted a few of the crossband radios to do a simplex to simplex cross band/locked band mode, and the bug was fixed.
Communications between the Emergency Management EOC, Red Cross Middletown, Red Cross Hamilton, and the W8CCI Net Control Station were near flawless, with no real problems reported.
In debriefing the event, the thing that we were really lacking on was OPERATORS.
This was just a drill and we had almost a month to get ready for it, and we didn't have enough operators to fill all the spots that needed to be filled.
If you have a desire to help out during a disaster as an Emergency Communicator,
WE NEED YOU!
Come Join Us NOW!
This drill was written for the Butler County EMA, Fire, Rescue, and other agencies involved in the countywide drill.
